The environmentalist spoke at the Solar Power International Conference being held in Anaheim, California, this week.

“The [...]]]> The solar power sector and the natural gas industry need to build an alliance to get more government support and take over the energy sector from incumbents like Big Oil and King Coal, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said on Wednesday.

The environmentalist spoke at the Solar Power International Conference being held in Anaheim, California, this week.

“The alliance is just forming,” Kennedy told reporters after his remarks. He added that the natural gas industry has been “hiding under oil and they think Big Oil is going to take care of them. But they’re realizing Big Oil is never going to let them make a profit” and that companies like Chesapeake are realizing “that their future is with the environmental community and the renewable community.”

He said the team-up also makes sense because power from natural gas can help balance out solar and wind-generated electricity on the grid, eliminating the problem of inconsistency on sunny days, for instance.

Kennedy argued that the solar power industry needs to alert the U.S. government that the country is in an “arms race with the Chinese.”

“It’s not an arms race over tanks and planes. It’s an arms race over who’s going to build solar panels and who’s going to build them the most efficient. We’ve got to start treating this as an arms race,” Kennedy said.

He added that the Chinese have outspent the U.S. government in the renewable sector and that “they know that this is the future and they want to put us out of business. They are going to put a lot of us out of business, a lot of solar panel makers out of business because they’re going to flood the market with their paneling.”

Reporting and writing by Laura Isensee

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These solar panels (left) on the main soccer stadium in Funafuti, the capital, are the first step in the [...]]]> With a highest point 4.5 metres above sea level, the Pacific island state of Tuvalu plans to shift to generate all electricity from renewable energies by 2020, hoping to push other countries to follow suit to fight global warming.

These solar panels (left) on the main soccer stadium in Funafuti, the capital, are the first step in the plan to end dependence on fossil fuels and slow climate change blamed for pushing up world sea levels. Tuvalu’s goal is to generate all electricity from wind, solar and other green sources.

By contrast, European Union nations have among the most ambitious goals among developed countries, aiming to get 20 percent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Tuvalu’s plan – story here - will cost more than $20 million and will require a lot depend heavily on aid from abroad. That’s a big cost for each of the atolls’ 12,000 citizens - $1,666 – but can have other benefits such as avoiding tanker spills from imported oil.

And the plan sounds to me exactly the sort of ”measureable, reportable and verifiable” actions to offset climate change that are being demanded of developing nations in U.N. negotiations on a new climate treaty due to be agreed in December.

The Maldives in the Indian Ocean have set an even more ambitious goal of becoming the first “carbon neutral” nation over the next decade. The archipelago plans to shift to wind and solar power and buy carbon credits to offset emissions from tourists flying to visit its luxury vacation resorts.

So if Tuvalu or the Maldives can go green, so can others?

(Photo credits: e8 group of 10 utilities from the Group of Eight industrialised nations who backed the installation of the solar panels)

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